


Field of Battle

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [22]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 10:59:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14307219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Summer blows by.Jared doesn't mean that as a pun, but considering what Bryce has been spending August perfecting, it kind of is one. Shit.





	Field of Battle

Summer blows by. 

Jared doesn't mean that as a pun, but considering what Bryce has been spending August perfecting, it kind of is one. Shit.

Bryce might have been right about inexperience and sucking? Not that Bryce ever sucked, like, at all, it’s been awesome from the get go, but the difference between the first time they fooled around and what sex is like now is fucking astronomical. 

Shit, sucking was a pun again, wasn’t it. Apparently getting your mind blown ( _shit_ ) messes with your head (shit shit _shit_ ).

*

Jared doesn’t know how obvious he’s been about what works for him, if he’s been more vocal in bed than he thought or Bryce has just been paying a lot of attention to his reactions, but basically everything that he likes most? Bryce does that. Like. Exclusively. And that was overwhelming enough when it was Bryce’s hand, but now that Bryce has joined hand and mouth in the most beautiful marriage of all time, Jared cannot cope.

No fucking wonder this guy is the future of the franchise. If he approaches hockey with the kind of instincts and determination to be the fucking best he approaches sex with, he’s going to make the Hall of Fame. Jared suddenly has hopes for a Flames Cup in the near future the way he never has, all because Bryce Marcus just sucked his dick so well that Jared saw the future, and the future was bright.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Jared says to the ceiling.

Bryce presses a kiss against Jared’s hip, which he guesses he can still feel? Not his legs, though. They’re gone. He’s pretty sure if he tried to stand up right now he’d crumple right to the ground.

“So that was alr—”

“I can’t _feel my legs_ , Bryce,” Jared says, then, “Shit, I’ve got you, I just need a minute—”

“No worries,” Bryce says, “You stay there.”

“What do you mean—” Jared says, though he’s answered when Bryce moves to straddle his thighs (oh hey, he _can_ feel his legs) and takes himself in hand. Jared would protest, but he’s still getting his breath back, and Bryce comes before he’s adequately recovered enough to have any faith in his hand-eye coordination. 

The face Bryce makes when he comes is objectively goofy, but somehow Jared’s endeared by it. Less endearing, but more hot is the way Bryce streaks his chest, like he’s leaving a mark. A mark Jared’s going to have to clean off sooner rather than later, but still.

“I feel lazy,” Jared says when Bryce rolls off him, dragging an idle finger through the come pooled on his stomach. 

“What do you mean?” Bryce says.

“Like, you gave me probably the best blow job of all time,” Jared says. “And then I just lay there waiting for my legs to regain sensation while you jerked off.”

“You looked really hot doing it?” Bryce says.

Jared snorts.

“Seriously,” Bryce says. “I kind of love the colour you get, all—”

“Like I’ve got a weird splotchy sunburn?” Jared asks, ignoring the way his pulse stupidly picks up at the word ‘love’. He has zero misapprehensions about what he looks like right now. He’s kind of known how he gets all along — mirrors exist — but the first time he saw himself interviewed about a minute after he got off the ice was — an eye opener. Every other dude: sweaty, maybe a little red. Jared: appears to have applied sunscreen like a Jackson Pollack painting and then spent a full week in the Sahara Desert. It is the opposite of hot. 

“I think it looks nice,” Bryce says. He’s a total liar, but Jared is too full of residual goodwill to call him on it, especially when Bryce strokes his thumb over the crest of Jared’s cheekbone, where he’s sure he’s still flushed, like he wants to feel it.

‘I love you’, Jared thinks, but — endorphins. It’s just the endorphins.

*

Bryce hasn’t repeated the birthday slip, which basically cements Jared’s opinion that it was a endorphin fueled mistake on his part. 

The problem is since those words settled on his own tongue, he’s had a hard ass time not saying them. Sometimes it’s fine. Most of the time it’s fine, really, but then there are moments when Bryce smiles that little smile at him, the one that looks shy, or compliments Jared’s shirt all earnestly like it isn’t from a three-pack of plain tees, or rests his head in Jared’s lap while they watch something mind-numbing — or admittedly after Bryce sucks him off, because seriously, endorphins are a hell of a drug — when it’s so fucking hard not to say it.

He doesn’t, though. And like. It’s fine. He’s got nothing to complain about. He’s got a boyfriend who’s really unexpectedly sweet, and hot as burning, and clearly into him, and again, _really good at giving head_. He can’t complain. 

They’ve got, like. Time, or whatever. Jared’s not planning on going anywhere, and it doesn’t look like Bryce is either, so. It’s fine. It’s cool.

*

They blow through (goddammit) August faster than even July, and it feels like maybe a week passes after Bryce’s birthday before Jared’s curfew is once again back to ‘seriously, it’s not even _dark_ out’ times. He’s not going to complain about it, though, because he’s got training camp, and even Bryce Justin Marcus (he looked up his full name on Wikipedia, sue him) isn’t enough to get him shirking his responsibilities. Apparently his parents don’t trust him to be responsible without the curfew, but. Whatever. He’s responsible. He’s very responsible.

It’s funny, because basically every single drill they do in training camp is the same as the ones he worked on in camp, but the difference is staggering. That makes sense, he guesses: camp’s for working on precision, consistency, all those things. No one was there to prove themselves, really, they were there to get better for next season, for the looming draft.

Camp is about competing for a limited number of spots. No one around Jared is putting in any less than full effort, and if someone is, he doesn’t notice them, which is probably a bad fucking sign for their future.

Bryce picks him up after the first day, even though they’ve basically just got time for Bryce to drive him home, maybe stop for food first, considering camp only lets out an hour and a half before Jared’s new curfew. Jared appreciates it, though, because his legs are fucking lead, and he doesn’t have the energy to drive himself. His dad dropped him off this morning, knowing that, and Jared was planning on taking the bus home, but personal chauffeur who happens to be stupid hot is way better.

“How’d it go?” Bryce asks, and Jared wordlessly groans and knocks his head against the headrest.

“You do good though?” Bryce asks, completely unfazed, and honestly, having a boyfriend who understands the living hell of training camp is great, why did Jared have such a thing against dating hockey players? Someone else would probably think that groan meant it went like shit, but it didn’t. He did well. He’s just absolutely wiped, knows he’s going to wake up in agony tomorrow before doing it all again. And again. And again.

“I think so,” Jared says. “I just—”

“Don’t start thinking about it,” Bryce says. “Save that shit for tomorrow.”

“I just don’t know if good’s enough?” Jared says.

“Jared—” Bryce says, frowning.

“I mean I’m trying to make sure I’m first line this year,” Jared says. He’s not worried about making the roster. He’s not worried about being top six. But if he wants to be drafted, and not just drafted, but drafted by the third round, he really needs to play those first line minutes. “So I’ve got to fucking rock it.”

“You will,” Bryce says, with more confidence than he maybe should. “No way they’re too dumb to use you.”

“Fingers crossed,” Jared says, shuts his eyes.

Bryce squeezes his hand.

“Both hands on the wheel, Marcus,” Jared says tiredly, and Bryce laughs but takes his hand away, presumably to do just that.

*  
He gets through camp. Does better than get through it, he guesses, because he’s told that he’s going to be on the first line in advance of the first game of the preseason, but that doesn’t mean anything.

“It means you’re on the first line, honey,” his mom says.

“For now,” Jared says.

“It’s not temporary as long as you earn it,” his dad says.

“Yeah, well,” Jared says. “I’m gonna try to, at least.”

“Buddy,” his dad says.

“I’ll stay on it,” Jared says.

“Better,” his dad says.

The preseason’s kind of more stressful than training camp, if less exhausting. In training camp, it’s how well you do in discrete exercises, an intra-team scrimmage at the end the closest thing you have to putting the fundamentals together. In the preseason it’s real, all those drills coming together so you can prove what you can do, and that isn’t necessarily in your control. You can’t control your teammates, your opponents, the refs, the boards if you’re playing somewhere you’re not used to, and even if there aren’t any points getting handed out yet, the scrutiny is real, not just from the coaching staff, but from the scouts, the media, the fans. He’ll feel better once he makes the regular season roster, even though he already knows he will. Will feel a lot better if he doesn’t blow his shot on the first line.

“You’ve got this,” his dad says, and Jared hopes so.

*

Flames training camp starts right before the Hitmen’s preseason, so the second Jared isn’t busy like, every single second of the day, or napping through the rest of it, it’s Bryce’s turn.

Bryce could half-ass it and still easily make the top six, but he doesn’t. That’s something Jared might have been surprised about a few months ago — dude who got arrested twice in the space of months kind of seems like the kind of player who’d show up to training camp out of shape and dick around with zero shame — but he knows better now.

Jared’s off to Regina for an exhibition game — well, three, actually, a brutal three games in three days — tomorrow morning, so this is their last chance to see each other until the Flames camp is over and their own preseason starts. It’s kind of scary, thinking about it, knowing that they’re not going to be seeing each other pretty much every day like they have been, not even close. He’s missing the first few days of school for the games, but soon he’s going to be juggling that, and games, and practices, and Bryce is going to be doing the same, minus the school thing, and who the hell knows how much they’re going to be able to see each other?

Still, he decides to ignore it for the day at least. His parents ‘generously’ extended his early curfew by a couple hours, with the understanding he’s getting his ass straight to bed when he gets home, since he’s got to be on the bus by 7:30, but that’s still barely any time, considering Bryce doesn’t get out of training camp until the evening.

It’s stupid, because he’s only going to be gone five days, but Jared wants to make the most of it. He doesn’t even know what that means: like, going two rounds? Staying wrapped up in each other? Either way, it doesn’t happen, because Jared’s only been there for about twenty minutes before Bryce’s eyelids start drooping.

“Wanna take a nap?” Jared asks. It’ll cut into the time, but he knows Bryce is probably bone tired.

“Nah, I’m good,” Bryce says through a yawn. “Let’s order something?”

Bryce lasts about ten minutes after that before his head droops forward, and Jared wraps an arm around him, pulls him in, because sleeping with his head on Jared’s shoulder is less likely to leave him with a crick in his neck. Food’s going to be here in half an hour, and it’s not like Jared doesn’t get it, didn’t drift off for little micro-naps on this same couch all of a week ago.

Bryce snorts a little, and Jared bites back a smile, endeared by it, his sleep slack face, his slightly parted lips, even the fucking drool Bryce is leaving on the sleeve of his shirt. 

He’s so fucked here. That’s okay though. He’s okay with that.

*

They beat Regina, Prince George and Moosejaw in front of a scattered but hostile Saskatchewan crowd, and it feels fucking amazing. 

He’d been almost reluctant, watching the start of the season loom, knowing what it meant, that that sunny little interlude was over, that he basically had to return to real life. But camp, training, drills, all that, it’s nothing like playing the game, even when the points don’t matter. 

The fourteen hour bus ride, getting stuck rooming with Tristyn, who talks in his sleep, not sleeping in his own bed, not seeing his boyfriend, it’s all erased when he takes the ice, and Jared has no idea how he forgot, even for a second, how much he loves this fucking game.

He doesn’t know if it’s luck or renewed energy or what, but when the buzzer goes on the Moosejaw game, Jared’s sitting on two goals, four assists, and a plus five rating over three games. His goal tonight? Game fucking winner, baby. And yeah, that slate’s going to be wiped clean once the actual season starts, but Jared’s pretty damn sure he’s going to be starting that season on Chaz Rossi’s wing, and considering Rossi put up eighty points last season and got drafted in the first round by the Golden Seals, that is a beautiful place to be.

Bryce has been texting him intermittently, and it’s not the same as actually seeing him, or even close, but Jared’s heart picks up every time he sees he’s got a text notification, even though half the time it’s just shit like _burns is trying to kill me_ or _kick reginas ass_ which, of course, they did.

He’s not expecting a text after the game against Moosejaw, since, unlike the others, it’s an evening game instead of an afternoon one, but when he gets out of the shower he finds a text from Bryce waiting.

_gwg fucking rite matheson!!!!_ , Bryce has texted.

Jared grins, _Isn’t it past your bedtime?_ he texts back. He doesn’t think he stayed up past nine-thirty once during training camp.

_prob but i stayed up n listened to the radio cudnt find it on tv_

_Go to bed. You have training camp in the morning._

_kk_ , Bryce texts back, along with a smiley and a heart.

“What’s got you so cheerful?” Koletrane asks suspiciously.

“What, man can’t be happy when he gets the game winner?” Jared asks. 

Koletrane squints at him. “You’re being weird,” he says finally.

Jared’s heard that a lot lately. 

“Whatever,” he says, and goes back to his phone, texting _Night_ , then, after some hesitation, follows it with a heart of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> WHL preseason may seem a bit odd, but they tend to bring teams from smaller cities to big ones for it so the travel isn’t ridiculous. That three games in three days series is based on the actual 2015 preseason, and the Hitmen did, in fact, win them all.
> 
> Also: here is a sampling of the name highlights from this year’s Calgary Hitmen roster: Beck, Tristen, Justyn, Cael, Ryder, Bryce (heh), Drea, Jameson, Ryely, and last but _absolutely not_ least, Orca 
> 
> What I’m saying is, art is going to imitate real life, and every name I have and will use for Jared’s teammates is a RL WHL name.


End file.
